When the final old-style analogue broadcasts cease in 2012 the default way of receiving TV will be Freeview. For years there have been alternatives for those willing to pay more, and you can end up with as many channels as Lady Gaga has costumes. Like those outfits, you might think: is it necessary to have so many?
Pay TV …

Incidently, re Sky: "Planning permission is not needed for mini-dishes". I think that applies to any dish up to a given size. Something around a metre across IIRC. This can be important if either you live in one of the more far-flung areas of the British Isles or you like to watch telly when it's absolutely peeing down outside.

Sky Anytime+ only for Sky Broadband customers - that's stupid

I can't get Sky Broadband where I live, so I have Virgin cable. Fine. I also have a Sky+HD box. But I can't use Anytime because, despite the fact the box hooks to my home network just fine, they won't allow streaming via anything other than their own Sky broadband service. This is a total nonsense and really pretty disappointing. I can't see any justification for this really. Shame is, in comparison to the truly unfrorgiveably unusably awful crap boxes from Virgin, the Sky+HD box is an absolute joy. So I'm stuck with half-a-service from each provider not making up the whole experience. Fantastic. :(

"unfrorgiveably unusably awful crap boxes from Virgin"??

Think you're a bit out of date - the Samsung V+HD box I've got is works fine and I personally think is better than Sky's offering.. I am considering upgrading to the Tivo though as it has more storage space and more than a weeks tv guide (the only 2 things I find a pain sometimes)..

"unfrorgiveably unusably awful crap boxes from Virgin" - yes!

I've got whatever they gave me as their "current" / "latest" box. It's so completely unusable it's shoved in a back bedroom and really never used. Completely unbearable crap. I only have to keep it so that they give me the tripleplay discount. Cheaper to get 3 services than just two. Madness.

Some are, some aren't

The original V+ boxes were absolute piss, but the Samsung as someone mentioned is far far better. It is much quicker and doesn't have half the bugs although it still isn't perfect and still needs the odd reboot. I managed to get the Samsung because I complained to VM, and got an engineer out. He came out and said the new Samsungs were coming in so he put one of those filter things in and said call back in a month as they should be in high supply. I did and got one... even got the same engineer. TIVO is looking good, so hopefully that doesn't get fucked up as well, although if I don't win one of the the free 1000 then I ain't subscribing anyway.

Bandwidth?

Just out of interest, if these boxes start downloading fairly large amounts of data is that going to be counted against my monthly bandwidth limits? 100gb a month could get used up pretty quickly with HD Tv on demand.

For an answer to your question

I used to have Virgin...

But then I had 4 outages, lasting 5-8 days each, in the space of one month, I was left without television from 20th December until 6th January, no refund, even after a letter to the boss, so I cancelled my subscription, and have been telly-less for two years, and I love it. Okay, I have reasonable broadband, so there is iPlayer and other services, but I

Like everything else with Virgin, when it works it's very very good, but when it's bad, it's horrid.

Crappy DVR

I used to have BT Vision, without subscription, just because it was the cheapest way of getting a decent PVR. At the time (2008) they were promising a firmware upgrade that would allow people without BT broadband to use the box. That never materialized and I left BT, so I couldn't use the PVR anymore. I've bought another PVR which isn't a patch on the BT one.

So has anybody yet come up with a way of using the BT box without a BT broadband connection?

The other options...

A HTPC running MediaPortal, XBMC or MythTV. While the setup cost might be a little higher its free after that. With some of these options you also have the advantage of things like proper web browsing, streaming from many other sites, playing every kind of file under the sun. With XBMC & Myth you can record on one box and playback on another networked box. 14 day EPGs. Setting recordings via smartphone. Playback via smartphone. Advert skipping. Multiple menu layouts.

Streaming is HD on PS3

Freesat

I was a subscriber to Sky for a long time but when I worked out how much it was costing me a year I simply couldn't justify it.

I first bought a bog standard DVB-S tuner and later a Freesat box. It works, there are enough mainstream channels to keep any normal person amused. Biggest wrench for me was I liked Discovery, History, & UK Gold but not for the money it cost to get them.

Biggest technical issue with Freesat at present is that free-to-air UK services have to broadcast from narrow beam Astra2D and there isn't enough capacity. Channels like the forthcoming Film4HD had to wait for a slot to free up. Astra 1N is supposed to launch midyear so if all goes well the situation should improve a lot this year.

OK, unless you can get Sky Broadband, you can't get Anytime+, but at least you can still get bloody TV! And as the only other option is the Phorm-toting-BT-wankers, that leaves you with one choice if you live in one of the not insignificant towns or cities which Virgin couldn't be arsed with - in Cheshire alone you've got:

Not Only, but also...

Not only is their coverage crap, but they have seriously curtailled plans to expand it. When we moved to our current address five years ago we were told they had plans to cable our area and would get back to us with a firm date. A year later it changed to their having plans, but it being so far down the line that no date would be forthcoming. A year after that I checked again and was told they had absolutely no plans to cable our area.

Humax HDR Fox t2

Excellent box

Great service...considering. After slagging off the 9200 Freeview PVR I have to admit that the HDR is the best and most reliable PVR I've ever owned. At least as reliable as the Sky box and in my experience that's saying something.

But of course FreeSat doesn't have the content of a PayTV service and sometimes that's for reasons that are downright annoying (the whole Astra 2D/Eurobird debacle as another poster mentioned).

I think that the two big deciders are money and HD. Sky's HD offering is way better than any other platform it seems - I'm surprised VM haven't done more here. I can genuinely say that over 90% of what I watch is in HD these days and I definitely can tell the difference. The two tuner issue is annoying but mainly because there are no +1 HD channels. I never watch live TV anyway but am often reliant on late night repeats to catch something originally broadcast in prime time.

Bad Virgin Boxes

Every time I've ever had to use a virgin set top box I've been constantly frustrated by the sluggishness, layout and navigation. My Sky+ box (circa 2007) has outperformed them in every case. It's quick, I can see more channel schedules on a given screen and it's not got ads filling up vital screen space.

Are the Virgin HD boxes much improved on this? Or am I still limited to viewing 5 channels worth of schedule at a time?

Virgin on the ridiculous

I am a new Virgin customer and I wonder just what kit they sent you. Firstly, my HD (Samsung) only have 80gb of space. The UI is slow (ask it for "motor sport" and it takes 15+ minutes to search the schedule), the search feature is hidden in a sub-menu you cannot access without losing live TV. All the "on demand" features are fragmented into sub menus that make perusal difficult and cause you to lose live TV. You cannot hid channels you do not subscribe to, all you can do is "favourite" some and that means favouriting everything that you subscribe to. The box (despite having the ports) cannot use Ethernet or USB.

The router (a re-badged NetGear) reboots for every single change. Want to set a fixed IP? Reboot. Want to change the SSID? Reboot. Want to... Reboot. Pain in the bloody ass.

Minor correction

It's 80hour of storage, no 80gb. So that does match what El Reg got - everything else still stands though.

And a few more I forgot: Schedule information is incomplete, it does not tell you if the show is a repeat or not, often misses the year and there is not quick way to jump to other showings. You cannot search on the summary, actor or anything else (and have I mentioned the search is slow?). The UI is fugly. Really, really fugly (and there's just now excuse for that).

And the inability to use Ethernet means you cannot consume media you may have on another other networked appliance (e.g. a NAS). Hello....Virgin...this is the 21st century calling. Get with the sodding program.

Virgin router

I have a feeling that the original poster has been lumbered with the crappy Virgin Super Hub. Yes you can use another router BUT you have to attach it to the Super Hub as Virgin WON'T supply a separate modem anymore (at least not for 30Mbit or faster services). The Super Hub has a cable modem built in. I hear that hopefully around May Virgin will be releasing an updated firmware so that Super Hub customers can disable the router side of the hub and use it as a bog standard modem with their own router.

Sky are just as bad with their broadband, you can use a 3rd party router but they insist you plug it in to the ADSL router that they provide. I understand that the older Sky routers can be hacked so you can get the login details and use a standard ADSL router but I gather with the newer modems it isn't possible (although do correct me if I'm wrong, I have Virgin broadband and only setup two Sky broadband connections for friends).

@Gansta

Yes, yes it is as slow as I say. I know because I spent a frustrating time trying to set up recording for WSB by searching for "motorsport" under the "TV Channels"

"You can't watch LiveTV while searching OnDemand (Probably a marketing decision rather than a technical one)"

Yes, I know this and I really don't care why it is that way; it's a PITA and affects my experience as a user.

"You can't hide Unsubscribed channels - So what? If you're on the V+ package you probably have XL anyway."

I can't view them and I don't want to have them cluttering up the guide, that's why.

"Why would you need to use Ethernet and USB? The software has no function for that - the recordings are encrypted for a reason."

You assumed I want to lift media off the V+ box and you assume wrong. I want to view media I already have on my network. The V+ box is running on a Linux distro, including "smbfs" would have been a snap.

"Have you heard of a Wireless Router? Never trust bundled routers."

I'll agree on that, I'm using the bundled one at the moment but considering buying another one and chucking DD-WRT on it.

Most of the above will be moot once I get around to setting up Myth with Freesat. The V+ box will either be returned or can just gather dust.

BT Vision

I've had BT Vision for ages (silver set-top box) and it's been great for me. It was totally free at that time. So I got broadband (which I needed anyway) plus a free freeview DVR with the option to watch the occasional film on demand.

Being freeview (for telly) and streamed (for on-demand) the quality isn't brilliant but it's ok on my CRT telly. I would like LoveFilm and iPlayer, but as far as I can tell only the latter is coming soon. I'll see how the YouView boxes perform when they come out to get LoveFilm.

Sky and Virgin would be better choices if I wanted proper HD and better film options but I can't get either of them and I'm happy without.

How can Sky justify...

...that I own my Sky+ HD box as in if it breaks it's down to me, but that if I un-subscribe (as I have had to do for a while due to a household financial meltdown) they turn off the recording function? Either I own the box or I don't. There is now a nice big shiny hard drive inside the box with very little to do. Its not even as if the charge for the Sky+ part anyway.

Given their intransigence, and given that my finances will again change, I may just look at using someone else and throwing 'my' Sky+ HD box in the bin. Still, look on the bright side, I suppose Sky could have turned off the HD part as well.

Bugger all this nonsense

I just get stuff off the Internet (legally, wherever possible). I can't see the point of broadcast TV nowadays so I don't watch it, which has the added bonus of saving me almost £150 a year because I don't need a TV licence.

Wrong price

So glad I got rid of $ky

BT Vision has a few problems, but overall I only pay for what I use and even my current wife is happy with $ky sports now.

Better still, I don't have Murdoch in my living room and my kids can watch their [rubbish] cartoons without adverts *and* I can remove items from the EPG that I'd rather the kids not waste time viewing like religious, adult or shopping channels.

What's not to like?

the on demand uses my ADSL and even with traffic shaping, at peak times the playback can suffer.

I would recommend BTV to anyone, but for the non-technically astute, the setup could be a bit of a right pain in the arse.

Oh, the disconnection process with $ky is quite a pain - even worse than leaving AOL in the mid 1990's.

More research needed El'Reg!

"Currently, there has yet to be one gadget or provider that delivers all the options as far as television goes"

Wrong.

I have an i3 box running windows 7 Media Centre with 2 DVB-S2 tuners in it. I have then configured this (google it, i'm not telling you how) to decrypt Sky signals (including HD), added Youtube, Skyplayer, Iplayer, 5, 4OD etc into 7MC. I've also added the LoveFilm plug-in and then set it up to play all my ...er... "other media" ;-) using FFDShow

I can also configure this for as many LNB's/Cables/tuners I have fitted so I can even decrypt 7 (1 LNB for the dreambox) to record 7 Sky channels at once if I want to!

I will grant you though, this isn't an easy setup and not for non-techies to setup but its pretty much the perfect device for ALL media. Its also not that expensive! I set mine up for £400 ... when you consider at launch the Sky HD boxes were, what, £299.... and mines much, much better!

BT

I'm currently without a TV/Broadband provider, as I'm working away from home and saw no need to continue my Sky contract while away.

I'm no fan of Murdoch, and I don't live in an area where I can get Virgin cable. I've not decided which provider I will choose next time, but I can say one thing: there is nothing that would make me go back to BT.

From 2006 to 2008, BT extended my contract with them *three times* without my permission and without informing me... although they remembered to bring it up when I phoned to cancel my subscription.

Sky's service, on the other hand, has been exemplary and I always get unfailingly helpful advice when I do have to call. This made such a change from being passed from pillar to post by incompetent BT call centre staff until my call was dropped because the clock ticked past 21:00. Several times.

I used to think the B in BT stood for British. I now know it stands for B[censored]

Goodbye to $ky

Totally agree with the result here. Had Sky HD for 3+ years, and the box has been continuously flaky in most of that time (even after a PSU upgrade.) Also due to piss-poor copper lines my "up to" 24Mbit internet ran at around 2.

Now that Virgin finally got round to converting the analogue cable in this area to something a bit less 19th century I can have a proper VoD service and an internet service that actually DOES what it says on the tin.

instals!

Its Simple

If you want speed go with Virgin. I have been on cable since it was blueyonder, in all that time I have NEVER lost an internet connection due to problems with Virgin. Also if they needed to complete upgrades they do it at hours that suite you so you do not lose your internet.

I will never go with sky, their internet is crap

I would only go with BT if I had a gun pointed to my head or if I moved out of a cable area.

The fourth option is...

virgin? not a fan...

well we switched back to virgin from sky for tv and broadband last december and it is still rubbish and slow. been with telewest, blueyonder now virgin and it doesnt compare to sky including sky broadband. im on the 10mbps with virgin and get 10 mbps yeah but have been getting regular disconnects from xbox live wired connection which didnt happen with sky bb. and then theres the traffic management crap. sky broadbend never let me down with speeds averaging around 7 mbps . no disconnects no download limits. the sluggishness of the tv is a joke too. and the blocky on demand progs. never thought i would say this but "cable" is shit in this country. unfortunately.